The show certainly goes out of its way to paint Barnabas as the victim so far as his curse goes - and in many respects he certainly is. But let's not forget that we never really know the whole story of what went on during those nights in Martinique between Barnabas and Angelique. And I think that was a deliberate choice on the show's part so as to keep the audience on Barn's side and to paint Ang as nearly a complete villain as possible. (Certainly if things had actually played out the way Lara Parker paints the Barn/Ang Martinique dynamic in "Angelique's Descent," Barn would not be the victim and Ang would not be nearly a complete villain - but thankfully the writers of the show had the good sense not to go as far into the backstory as Parker does). And, of course, in other respects Barn is far from the victim because quite often he's the one doing the victimizing, particularly when he insists upon getting his way through psychological intimidation, of which characters like Julia and Willie are all too often the victims. Things with Barn are rarely black and white - there's a whole lot of gray!
However, getting any more deeply into Barn's character is probably a discussion best served in a separate topic because it's way OT for this one, so I'll leave it at that here.